Copycat

Year of release : 1995

Run time : 2h3m

Genre : Psychological Thriller / Horror

Cast : Sigourney Weaver, Holly Hunter, Dermot Mulroney, William McNamara, Will Patton

Doctor Helen Hudson gives a lecture about criminal psychology at an American university. After the lecture she goes to the bathroom, where she is caught by the serial k1ller of the moment, who escaped prison, and is trying to strangle her in the women’s bathroom.

13 months later, Helen can’t leave the house, being agoraphobic and having panic attacks.

San Francisco homicide detectives, MJ Monahan and Ruben Goetz are training (this is important at the end) with MJ giving her partner advice on how to sh00t.

In some other part of town, the latest serial k1ller is choosing his next victim.

The detectives are called to a crime scene, and MJ finds out from the first cop on the scene their lieutenant took the stocking around the victim’s neck ,as he doesn’t want the press to get information on the crime, scaring the public.

Helen keeps on calling the police station as she thinks they have no idea what they are dealing with, and she is right. MJ finds out who she is, and watching her interviews and lectures, goes to her place asking for her advice.

Although she kept on calling the station, Helen doesn’t want to talk to them.

She asks if the serial k1ller who tried to k1ll her escaped prison again.

MJ shows her the 3 case files, and Helen has a panic attack. The detectives leave, but leave the files with Helen.

When she comes to her senses, her assistant convinces her to look at the files.

After she looks over the files, she takes a dark color dress out of the closet and puts it on the bed. When she comes back from the shower, the dress on the bed is the red one she wore at the lecture where she almost got k1lled.

Inspector Nico keeps on picking on Ruben as he is jealous he works with MJ, and thinks they are dating, as Nico used to date her and wants her back.

Helen calls MJ and tells her 3 of the files are the work of the same man while the last one belongs to someone else. And also tells them the crimes are the work of a copy cat k1ller, who likes to re enact scenes of previous crimes.

One evening Helen receives mail with a video sent by the k1ller. When the detectives tried to copy it, it deleted itself.

We see Peter, the serial k1ller, has his new victim in his house, with his wife upstairs. He dumps the body on the side of a hill, next to a No Dumping sign.

Helen figures the crime out again, and right after, they find a woman shot in a car looking as if it’s gang related. Helen figures this one out too, and the police find a note quoting a The Police song .

After this, Helen sees the k1ller in her house, and realizes he’s been always entering her place, being the one who exchanged the dresses she put on the bed earlier in the movie.

Helen pretty soon realizes the k1ller copies the “works” of the serial k1llers in the order she gave at her last lecture .

I personally enjoyed the movie. It’s an intelligent movie which also has this atmosphere it pulls you into.

If you pay attention to the background, the k1ller is always there, starting with the first scene, in the crowd, then at the police station.

The acting was great from everyone involved, from Sigourney Weaver, who’s character had panic attacks, unable to leave home whenever she tried to, to the actors playing serial k1llers and detectives.

The soundtrack was good.

The visual effects were good.

Copycat received positive reviews with Cinema Score audiences grading it an A-.

Copycat grossed 79 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of 27 million dollars.

You can watch the full movie on platforms like Dailymotion.

Rating : It’s so money!